


A Stressful Work-Environment

by jasmiinitee



Series: Autocrats [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: (but not a lot and more internalised than intentional), Asgard, Asgardian Magic, Asgardian Magic (Marvel), Fantastic Racism, First Meetings, Fluff, Gen, Jotun Loki, Loki is an idiot, Not Thor: Ragnarok (2017) Compliant, Period Drama in Space, Politics AU, Pre-Relationship, Sigyn is a city architect, They get along well except when they dont, except in chapter three that's not so nice, he is made to realise that later on though, meet-cute more like hi wow you're a jerk, which is rad because the buildings in Asgard are crazy I mean what even is physics
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-07
Updated: 2018-08-29
Packaged: 2019-03-28 08:39:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13900362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jasmiinitee/pseuds/jasmiinitee
Summary: “You’re not exactly made to work in social situations," the chairman of the council told him."What I mean is… working in a service position might not be your… forte,” he said.Loki couldn't exactly argue with that one. Sigyn had made it clear. The heat of her firm hands lingered on his palm and made his skin crawl.Part of my politics AU that's definitely your thing if you like jötun Loki and slow-burn worldbuilding, cute female friendships and great Asgardian drama





	1. Do I Distract You?

**Author's Note:**

> Set some time after the awkward lunch date, and naturally before "Why Was I Born Dark", but the reading order isn't really that important because this series is an unfinished one anyway. What you need to know is that Loki spent some several years in exile on Jötunheim and managed to slither back into Asgard, as part of the court politicians working as Odin's councilmen. 
> 
> All feedback is appreciated and makes me super happy, so let me hear what you thought!

She was a tall woman, dressed up in sturdy boot trousers and a modest tunic, sleeves rolled up as she brushed her blonde hair back into a bun. Loki took a deep breath and paused at the threshold of the third floor - lower, private levels of the house overlooked the canal below, but the main entrance was up on ground level. He hoped dearly that his squinting at the sun wasn’t all too obvious. The whole ordeal made him feel foolish enough on its own.

“Excuse me, miss?” he greeted. She was bent over a desk, tidying up a pile of papers and held up a finger, telling him bluntly to wait for her greeting. Loki frowned. Did she not know of that day’s schedules for the master architect? He looked around, but she seemed to be the only one in the office. He couldn’t sense any movement behind the doorway to the left either.

“Excuse me. I come on behalf of the Council of the Realm. Is this the Sigstad house?”  
“Yes, I hear you. Thank you. And right on -” she said and glanced up quickly, freezing mid-movement when she actually saw him. Her mouth was left open in a confused twist. Loki pressed down a grimace and held his posture.  
He must have been a sight for an assistant girl like that, in the brightness of a sunlit townhouse foyer, but was this really necessary?  
“Oh,” she said, then, trying for a surprised smile. “Welcome. It’s nice that you’re… on time, sir. I was expecting Lord Bragi.”  
“I’m glad to hear that it pleases you,” Loki said and inclined his head as politely as he could. “I am not Bragi, as you can undoubtedly see. Where is your master? I am here to speak about the -”  
“The renovation of the baths and healing rooms of Crownsbridge?” she said and cut him off. The smile disappeared and she turned to look at him fully, clearly not enjoying what she saw. Loki narrowed his eyes - what was her business there, acting like a yappy shepherd dog.  
“Excuse me?” he asked. She stared right at him and her expression soured further.  
“I am in charge of that,” she said. “You’re here to speak with me. My uncle is not involved in that project, and I do not work for him.”

Loki worked his jaw and swallowed down the few less-than-polite words on his tongue. She stared, expectant and unamused, so he nodded gracefully, careful not to bow too low. Damn him, and damn the council for not saying anything.  
As much as he would have liked to think otherwise, he was not in a position to ruin this task. They would have his head if he failed, and it wasn’t truly that much of an exaggeration. 

Such mellow reaction seemed to save him, for time being, and Loki was grateful for the architect’s ability to retreat her defences. She walked around her desk and raised a brow at him, waiting for something more. An introduction, perhaps.  
“My apologies, lady. I truly didn’t know to expect someone else,” Loki said. He spread his hands and smiled for the effect. “Loki, of… well. I have no father.” She could certainly see where he came from, judging by the way she looked at his pale blue hands and straight through his eyes. She knew who he was, and so did all of Asgard.  
“Brother of Byleist,” he added, more out of spite than anything else. Though her expression was relaxed, she looked a bit upset.  
“Yes, I gathered. I am Sigyn. Fjotradottir, after my mother. Lord Sigr is my uncle.” 

And she offered Loki her hand.

To shake or to kiss, he couldn’t say, but he took it nonetheless. She had a firm, warm grip on his hand and shook it once before letting go.  
It was strange.  
He felt strange. The heat of her skin lingered on his palm and made his skin crawl.

“My lady,” Loki said and tried to recover from the sudden blow of complete lack of control. He was making a fool of himself, when she must have already thought ill of him based on his visage alone. An ill-mannered pet of the court, or at least something to that effect.  
“We’re not in the halls of the court and council, are we?” she asked. Loki shook his head slowly. He didn’t know what the true question was behind her words.  
“No,” he said. “They’re quite a while from this side of the city.”  
“Then Sigyn will do. I’ve been the head architect of this project for nearly a decade now. No progress from your, the council’s, end. And you’re the newest… messenger?” she said, and it took Loki a moment to understand that this was now their final introduction and his last chance to do something for his station in this place. He shook his head, but there was something light in her tone. 

“Dear Norns, no. I’m far too old and hideous for that sort of work,” Loki said and took the bait, letting his tone imply a joke at his own expense. He looked for a reaction in her expression, but none came for a while. 

Then she smiled. Loki stared at her.  
“So you’re just the new leading courtier in this endless quagmire?” Sigyn asked.  
“The new head secretary of the High Council of the Realm. Your contact for now,” he managed without choking. She nodded, and for a reason he couldn’t name, he added: “Loki will do.”

“So… Come in already. I’ve spread out some of the older and newer plans over here,” she said then and waved him inside, gesturing at the large desk. Loki followed suit and tried to look at the drawings. It would be a pain to make sense of them - he was no builder.  
“They’re on paper, I’m sorry for that,” Sigyn said and didn’t sound like she was sorry at all. She seemed more frustrated than anything. “My uncle is an old-fashioned man and hates all star charts and forgeries with a passion.”

Loki gave her a sidelong glance and worked his jaw to keep his mouth shut. Was it a mockery of his field?

“I’m rather certain I’ve had to deal with more traditional views than his,” he said tightly. “I can work with paper.” Sigyn’s answering look was an odd little frown.  
“Good,” she huffed. “You can leave your things on the chest in the corner.”

/ / / /

Loki was feeling rather hopeless after three long hours of trying to find a common language with Sigyn, listening to her arguments against the council’s visions on city planning of which he knew nothing, and learning to read her drawings and notes - a great deal of which were based on older plans by several different old men with what seemed like terrible cases of hand tremors. Why was this project granted to him? He didn’t know a thing about this kind of in-depth bureaucracy, and hadn’t received much briefing by others working on the project before him.

What was more, he hated the fact that he was practically working as Bragi’s underling. The red-bearded idiot was so full of himself and his poems - and the old family manor overlooking the southern orchards that made him a Lord - that Loki found it difficult to see him ever having entered the crowded central baths and healers’ institute.  
Not that Loki had ever seen the place from inside, either, but the palace had baths and healing rooms of its own. And now he suspected that he would have been made to turn around at the threshold if he even tried to enter.

By the time he reached the fiftieth decade of contested and discarded plans, he gave up. He tried to act in a respectable way and not groan in frustration, when he told Sigyn to read through the papers he had brought for her and her uncle. She didn’t seem particularly excited, but agreed.  
They were some of the latest statements by the High Council and Bragi’s useless Cultural collegium instead. It was something about the important historical value of old structures and statues. Loki hadn’t put in a great deal of thought when he had read it himself.

Sigyn had told him to help himself to the pitcher of water and bowl of apples on a small side table. Loki thanked her. He didn’t want to get his fingers sticky, but water was a welcome relief, and offered him something to do. The cup felt pleasantly cool in his hands.

“I’ve heard that you’re quite the…” Sigyn said after a while, but paused to search for her words. It roused Loki from his exhausted trance quickly, and he looked up at the architect. She frowned, and panic climbed up his throat. Surely it was nothing. Sigyn was just exercising a healthy fit of common sense. He bit down on his tongue to keep from snapping anything that would make her judgemental slurs worse, would prove him a rabid animal and a barbaric fiend of the whole nation and a mindless -  
“Witch?” she asked instead. He looked up at her curious expression, but she turned away and cleared her throat. 

She wanted to know about his magic? It was an odd topic for the task at hand, and Loki resisted the urge to fidget, to wring his hands together. Of course she would have heard of his magic, there was no soul on Asgard who hadn’t, but why was she asking about it?  
“A shapeshifter, I mean.”

And there it was. 

Loki pulled back and managed to keep himself from scoffing out loud, but an uncomfortable shiver ran up his arms. Of course that would be the reason of her interest, he was a fool to hope for other questions. No one wanted to have a giant around, much less a giant taught by the best tutors of Asgard for his entire life. They were already dangerous and unreliable enough, and he was a prime example.  
He tried to keep his expression still and unfazed - perhaps a little amused, because wasn’t that exactly what he was supposed to be. Aware of his place. 

“And I’ve heard that people don’t enjoy being lied to,” he said instead of something safer and smiled politely. It made his cheeks hurt. “You should make up your minds already.”  
“What?” Sigyn asked and put down the council statement, looking lost and surprised. As if she hadn’t just said that she couldn’t even stand looking at his ugly face.  
“Do I distract you?” Loki asked.  
“Excuse -?”  
“Is my appearance of some importance for your ability to draw and read?” he barked.

She stared at him for a while, wide-eyed, before opening her mouth and shaking her head, mute with whatever it was she was thinking. Amazing, just absolutely fantastic, because what he needed on top of everything else was her gaping at him like his existence alone was a great insult.  
“No, that’s not what I meant to say! No, I’m so sorry,” Sigyn rushed to say. “By Valhalla, I didn’t mean that you should… that I would want you to… shift, now.”  
“Save your sorrows, woman” he snapped. 

When he looked back up at her, he wished that he hadn’t. She recoiled and crossed her arms, giving him an ugly look. Her frown was nervous, her posture tense.

“You don’t take apologies well, do you. Sir.”  
“Can you not just do your-”  
“I will file an official complaint,” she said, voice raising, “if a royal councilman walks into my office and starts insulting me, from the first moment to when we finish. Your face being here has no effect on my work, Secretary, and I wish that you can acknowledge that too.”

Loki stared at her in silence. She smiled politely and took a deep breath, but this time it was a smile he was more familiar with than those she had greeted with him earlier that day. It was a cool one, one of his own.  
Sigyn stood up straight and took a step away from the table, very pointedly turning her back at him. Loki opened his mouth to say something, a placating request, maybe even an apology, because he was supposed to be good at something like this. He had been raised to be the diplomat to Thor’s strategist, however wrong the thought felt now. Sigyn must have heard his sharp intake of breath, because she only shook her head firmly before he managed to say a word.

He waited.

“I am sorry, I didn’t mean to insult you, sir. I was curious, and about to say that my mother has done some magical studies as well,” Sigyn said slowly, and gathered the rest of her papers. She carried them over to a side table and started to sort them into drawer boxes on the front of it. Something in that dismissal felt even more brutal than the insult she hadn’t quite given.  
“I was hardly -” Loki tried, but she kept talking in a soft tone.  
“I have heard that you’re quite a skilled witch. Or mage. I don’t know which word is proper for someone more… academically inclined, as I’ve heard.”  
“Both are used,” he replied, hesitating.  
“Good to know.” She didn’t turn around.

For a moment the only sound in the room were the drawer and the papers in the architect’s hands. He stared at the table and picked his nails, rough like chunks of coal and looking more like claws than anything people were supposed to have.  
“…I think we’ve got strayed from the topic. Sigyn,” Loki said, and tried to think of something to fix the situation. “And I do hope that… that you can show me the rest of these disagreements regarding the baths. The design.”

“You don’t handle being… polite all that well either, I think. Loki,” Sigyn said, finally turning around and returning to the desk. Even if her tone lost it’s sharpest edge and she didn’t actively bristle at him anymore, her expression stayed cool. Loki looked at her carefully. Did she really have the audacity to call him rude after keeping him on his toes for the entire morning?  
“But of course, sir,” Sigyn said. “I want you to see the newest drawings I’ve made of the old basements. They need to go and be rebuilt. In their present layout they’re a risk to people’s safety, and you can tell that to the rest of the council as well.”


	2. Old Tales

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sigyn meets up with a friend, Loki meets up with colleagues. People have varying stages of excitement about yesterday's meeting.

Morning light was shimmering and lively and the sky above was near cloudless, the shimmering stars of Asgard’s constellations dotting the bright blue of it. _The World Tree_ , if you believed in such things, but nevertheless it was a beautiful picture. It was just a lovely day, and everything was just as it should have been. Nothing out of ordinary. Nothing bothering Sigyn as she tried to pick up her speed.

Running was clumsy with her two layers of skirts. It was a nice dress, but not one made for running. She would have been on time had her aunt not insisted on the dress for the entire morning. It hadn’t mattered that she had already decided to wear it, because Aunt Sofn was exceptionally skilled in disagreeing with all those who agreed with her. 

At least she wasn’t the only one stretching her steps. Summer mornings had that effect on the streets a bit too often. There were busy people everywhere, daughters and servants of city families sent out to shops or out of their fathers’ way. A group of boy children ran past with a ball and Sigyn halted just in time to avoid colliding with them. Talk about morning rush, the walkways were packed.  
“Sorry!” one of the boys yelled, brown and bright-eyed. Sigyn waved them away.  
“Keep your eyes open in the future,” she called back. Hopefully they would watch their steps. Fighting amongst boys was one thing, but playing outside over the canals and in the crowd didn’t have to end up with one of them in the water. 

“Sigyn!” Nanna called from somewhere, and Sigyn snapped her head up again. Where was the familiar cloud of black hair? She scanned the crowd for a good while before an impatient whistle grabbed her attention from above. And there she was, on a balcony of a tea room, waving her hand and smiling brightly. Looking as warm and happy as ever.  
“Come up already, I’ve got us a table!” Nanna said.  
“Thank you!” Sigyn replied and strode inside.

Small potted bushes and embroidered rugs made the tea room feel like if a park was made into a household pet. The chatter and footsteps of the streets quieted down almost instantly. The door must have been warded somehow. There were only a few silent customers downstairs, next to a wall of bookshelves. Sigyn tried to keep her shoes from squeaking as she sneaked past them to the staircase. 

The whole space upstairs looked like everyone in the borough (and their friends) had picked that very place to meet for a late breakfast. Nanna waved to Sigyn from a nice window-side table. It felt awkward to weave her way through a sea of chairs and tables with her clumsy bag, but at least she only managed to knock over one empty cup. How had Nanna even managed to steal the spot before other morning customers? 

Then again, maybe she didn’t have to. Being Nanna, she would have likely charmed an entire household to move their meeting elsewhere.

“Greetings to you!” Nanna laughed and spread her arms. Sigyn hauled her bag off her shoulders and threw it onto the sturdy padded chair before embracing her friend tightly. She smelled like flowers and honey.  
“And you stay blessed,” Sigyn replied and kissed her dark cheeks. “How are your bees?”  
“They’re all right, thank you. We’ll have honey for the next pot of tea if you have time to visit my place some day.” 

It had been far too long since they’d last met, months since she’d had a clear enough set of papers to take out of the office. After the mess that was… well, nothing bad really, but a mess nonetheless, it was a blessing to just enjoy a morning with Nanna. They sat down, and as Sigyn dug out her drawings and notes Nanna poured them both some tea.

“Were you busy this morning?” she asked with a curious smirk. Sigyn smiled and shook her head.  
“I’m sorry I got here so late. You didn’t have to wait long, did you?” she asked. Nanna shook her head.  
“No, silly. I just had enough time to order the tea and a few pastries. Help yourself,” she said, and Sigyn nodded her thanks. 

“What are you working on?” she asked Nanna, looking at her thick file of paperwork.  
“Oh, yes! These are the records - or some of them, but you understand what I mean - records from Vanaheim. We finished the field studies there a month ago with the girls I’m mentoring now,” Nanna explained and showed her a set of patterns. Jagged and spiralling shapes. They looked foreign, but that was all Sigyn could say.  
“Can you tell me more?” Sigyn asked, and Nanna’s excited smile was so warm that it made all her own troubles fade away, at least for a while.

/ / / /

The meeting table was grand and wide, reminiscent of great longships that the first Aesir manned in old legends, when they came ashore. When they slew half of the giant race from their way, for their kin was born of venom, fouler than any other. Building the great and glorious realm of Asgard on their bones.  
_His bones._ Loki clenched his jaw even as he sat around the same table with no complaint. A shimmering image of the world tree worked as a base for other forgeries if needed. Right then it was spread out as maps and charts of Vanaheims largest forests and richest soils.

Loki hadn’t been able to focus on the debate for some time, but Baldr - so eloquent and beautifully spoken - was close to shaking his fists and screaming, face so flushed in anger that it was a darker shade than his pale blonde eyebrows. Something about taxes and mining rights. The whole debate was virtually useless anyway. It would all be for Odin to decide in the end of the day. 

As it should. The king was the king, no matter if he was a fool or a wise a man. It didn’t mean that Loki wasn’t still a bit frustrated when all their arguing had less weight than a feather, but he couldn’t be that bothered about it either. The work he had been given was not great politics, and he recognised it only because he’d hardly had any idea there even _were_ problems like that. He looked at the pile of papers with a twisting feeling in his guts, but it wasn’t born of small healthcare budgets and misbehaving city planners. 

It was just that he had managed to fail the simplest of messenger jobs available. 

The instructions had been very simple: read these papers and take them to the architect, take their response and let us fix the problem. Sigyn’s stiff look hadn’t gone unnoticed when she’d made additions to her prepared complaints. The architect had gathered up two new disagreements just for his sake. It hadn’t gone well, and she had made it clear.

Loki ran a hand over his mouth, trying to figure out the best way to start his presentation. ‘Yes, well, I set the council and the culture officials back another five years on this mess, but other than that everything is fine,’ was likely not the best option if he wanted to keep his head intact.  
It was a disaster, and the papers disagreed with his cold hands, feeling stiff and wrinkled and unwilling to lie straight in a neat pile.

“Loki,” Forseti said, snapping him out of his thoughts. The chairman looked at him with strange intensity and he nodded carefully.  
“Yes, Drots Forseti?” Loki asked, keeping his voice steady and his expression polite.  
“Secretary, you’ll speak on the Healers’ Institute in a quarter. I thank Councilman Baldr for his… insight on the import tax issue,” the Head of Justice said, his eyes just as cool as Loki remembered Hogun’s being when particularly displeased. It had to be thing of Vanaheim. Forseti stood up, pointing at Loki and Baldr both.  
“We will all enjoy a brief recess. Tyr and I will meet with the King, but in the meantime I still expect full notes of that debate.”  
“Of course.” Loki managed not to grimace.

Baldr sat back down with a heavy slump and looked over at him.  
“Did you listen to a word I said?” he asked. Loki looked at him in the eye and let out a long sigh through his nose.  
“No, I didn’t,” he said. “Not after you opened the map.”  
“I should have figured that out already,” Baldr said and rolled his eyes. “You can draft notes on the starting arguments, then.”

/ / / /

“Sofn is so stressed out now that uncle left for Alfheim. She doesn’t trust him to come back in one piece,” Sigyn said and looked at Nanna over her charts. It wasn’t a good excuse for her slow morning, but at least it was something.  
“You should have invited her to join us,” Nanna huffed like it should have been obvious. Sigyn tried to hold back her smirk. It was hard to picture Aunt Sofn ever sitting down for a morning of sweets strong tea and a bunch of academic papers.

“I don’t think that would have been wise. She’s too much of an artist for this. She’s going to see a play in the afternoon anyway,” Sigyn said. She touched the edge of her teacup but it was still a bit too hot from refilling.  
“Maybe she’s more at home there”, Nanna agreed, but clearly very interested. “Which play is it?”  
“Oh, I don’t know,” Sigyn sighed. “Something tragically boring about yet another warrior and his mourning wife. I don’t like those.” Nanna swatted her hand gently.  
“I do!”  
“I know you do,” Sigyn smiled. “I still remember sitting through ‘The Bride and the Riverhorse’ with you and Baldr three years ago.”  
“Oh, it was so wonderful! I love Modi Dagmarsson,” Nanna sighed, and by her dreamy look she was already back at the theatre, staring at her favourite actor as he gave another melodramatic monologue. Sigyn huffed a little but nodded along.

The Bride and the Riverhorse was a classic - and so tragic and that it was beyond cliche. The actors hadn’t made the experience any easier either, not with the Academic Crown Theatre. Very extravagant, very over-the-top. Baldr must have had to pull quite a few strings to even get them in at all.  
Truth to be told, she would have rather watched a recital of the poems in some tavern or borough school. Those focused less on over-acting and more on the actual stories.  
The Crown Theatre was _all_ flourish. She’d been very lucky that Baldr had seemed about as enthusiastic over the sheer… _Asgardian-ness_ of the whole ordeal as Sigyn herself. They had shared a few suffering glances with each other over Nanna’s curls. 

Nanna, however, loved those sentimental productions more than anything, and she had cried a lot, and neither had had the heart to say no. It had been all right in the end, but enough for another decade at least.  
The tired thought brought with it another, and it was one Sigyn had tried to push away since last night.

“Well, if you like royal drama, I think have the just story for you,” she sighed, staring at her damned court papers and structure drawings and the scrawling notes in the margins.  
“Oh? Tell me everything,” Nanna said, spreading her hands over Sigyn’s drawings to get her eyes up. “It’s the Crownsbridge project, isn’t it?”  
“They gave me a new courtier to work with,” Sigyn nodded. She tried not to let her shoulders tense too much. “It was… very strange.”  
“Who? Not Baldr, surely? He didn’t tell me that he’d -”  
“No, not Baldr,” Sigyn rushed to say. She glanced over her shoulder and lowered her voice, beckoning Nanna closer. It wouldn’t be good to shout too loudly out in public. She leaned over the table, looking surprised, but kept quiet until she was close enough for Sigyn to whisper in her ear.

“I met with Loki,” she said. 

There was a short pause of very confused staring. Nanna blinked a few times, glancing at the serving girl a few tables across before looking back at Sigyn.  
“What?” Nanna asked slowly, looking like an owl. Sigyn cleared her throat and tried her best to look as normal as she could. Whatever was going on inside the palace, she didn’t want to get caught in the mess. It had been nothing out of ordinary. Nothing except a frost giant standing in her office.  
“Loki,” Sigyn whispered again and brushed her fingers through her hair. “As in… Not-Odinson.”  
Nanna stayed quiet for a good while. Sigyn sipped her tea and tried not to act like she was stuck thinking that shaking hands with Not-Prince Loki had felt like shaking hands with the dead. Or how his searing looks still gave her an uncomfortable feeling. 

Nanna brushed her hands through a few thick curls of hair that had strayed from her updo. She did that often when she got nervous. Sigyn didn’t know when she’d picked up the habit from Nanna, but clearly they were both equally bad at pretending to be casual.

“So he’s really got himself employed there? At the court,” Nanna wondered aloud, turning to look out of the window, wide-eyed. Sigyn nodded.  
“So it seems. He was in my office yesterday.”  
“By the Norns. I didn’t think it true,” Nanna breathed out.  
“You’re the one with a husband in the council, you should have told me!” Sigyn laughed and let out a shaky breath.  
“He hasn’t said anything to me! I swear,” Nanna gasped and held a hand over her heart.  
“Nothing?” Sigyn asked. Baldr was a loyal and obedient councilman, of course. It still seemed odd that he wouldn’t have told his wife anything about the newest member of that stuffy club, considering who said newcomer was. The news of last few months hadn’t been quiet in the city. Nanna paused and frowned, thinking harder. 

Sigyn waited for her as Nanna tapped her jaw and stared at a half-eaten plum pastry in deep thought. The tea had already cooled down a little.  
“Well, he did mention that Loki is now… _lounging around_ , was what he said,” Nanna said. “But I didn’t realise that he meant _in the Council_.”  
“Lounging around?”  
Nanna’s nothing was usually at least something, and apparently this was no exception. She just shrugged.  
“Yes, something about how he managed to talk himself out of exile with the King. And I heard that Lord Bragi gets into very heated arguments with him…” Nanna said. She went back to her pastry but dropped it back on the plate. “Oh, of course Baldr meant the meetings if he’s talking about Bragi! So Loki is in the Council.”  
Sigyn took a sip of her tea and tried to think what it meant. He was no longer a prince, and that made the whole situation very strange. How was there a spot for him in the court?  
“They say he speaks for Jötunheim,” Nanna whispered, and Sigyn nearly choked on her tea. 

She tried to clear her throat as quietly as she could. She would have liked to avoid the next table or the serving girl eavesdropping on their gossip. Especially now that it was clearly a good rumour when it made her try to breathe her tea instead of drinking it.  
“Is that true? Why?” Sigyn asked Nanna and blinked water away from her eyes, then quieter and more tensely: “How is he allowed to do so?”  
Nanna spread her hands.  
“I only know what everyone else is saying,” she said and shrugged a little. “I haven’t met him in the palace yet. Seems like he’s doing his best to avoid crowds, Baldr says he keeps to himself outside of meetings. And Baldr doesn’t talk that much about the Council, you know that.”

Sigyn let out a sigh and pushed the drawings back into a pile. She buried her face in her hands. Her brain was in too many tangles to get any calculations or corrections done anyway.  
“What am I going to do?” she mumbled. She had already got bad enough a reputation as it was, working for the Council and spending time with Baldr and Nanna, ‘like some climber’. Now she was working with a recently exiled throne reject giant, no less on a project everyone hated?  
“Your job. I know you’ll do fine,” Nanna said and leaned over to pat her shoulder. She bit back a groan, and nodded instead, sitting back up. She had to admit that she wasn’t exactly sure she could pull this one off by herself.  
“If you say so,” she agreed nonetheless, trying to smile a little. Nanna poured her more tea, so at least there was that. Sigyn thanked her and pulled the cup closer.  
“What was he like?” Nanna asked quietly, and judging by how hard the serving maid tried to avoid looking at them, she was listening too. Sigyn took a deep breath. She had promised drama, hadn’t she.

“Stiff and very… courtly. If you get my meaning,” she said and lifted a brow. Nanna rolled her eyes, but it was in good humour.  
“Well, he was trained to be more courtly than most,” she quipped, but was twirling her hair again. “Was that all?”  
“Well, he does look like -” Sigyn cut herself off and felt blood drain from her cheeks. She cleared her throat before gesturing hesitantly at her face and hands, not knowing how else to describe “- a son of Jötunheim. Blue.”  
Giant-blue was far from a compliment on someone’s paleness, but she had no other word. He really was of a very cold hue.

“You look a little spooked,” Nanna said after a thoughtful hum. Sigyn wanted to shake her head and say that ‘spooked’ was a gross overstatement, but the more she thought about it, the more it started to sound like a truth.  
“Mm… Maybe I am,” she said and sipped her tea. Spooked. Threatened, at least, by his sharp tone and ugly words and the dismissive attitude he had showed up with. It didn’t feel good.  
“Yes, actually, he was an eel. Courtly in a very bad sense, too,” Sigyn said more firmly.

“He didn’t get violent, did he?” Nanna asked, looking alarmed as she glanced her over. Sigyn shook her head.  
“No, not like that. He just… got offended over nothing when I was trying to make small talk. Spoke in a very rude and proud manner.”  
“Ah, I see,” Nanna said. “That does sound like him.” She sounded relieved, and Sigyn smiled reassuringly. Everything was fine. Their sugary brunch was more than enough to fix yesterday’s sorrows.  
“I’m still in one piece, he was just an ass,” she told Nanna. “No offence, but noblemen usually are.”  
“Well, Baldr is a rare one,” Nanna agreed. They really were a lucky couple to have found each other.

“I gave... _Secretary_ Loki, I think he said, a new pile of complaints to sort out. And when I told him I’d send in a complaint for the Council, he got a lot quieter,” Sigyn said at length.  
“Serves him right, then,” Nanna assured, and it made her feel a little bit better.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for taking so long! I've been busy as heck this spring.


	3. A Part of Noble Schooling

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yelling, that is, at least on Asgard. 
> 
> It might not be a good idea to put self-absorbed rich men in a room tgether gor hours on end and call it a "wise" consulting branch of the court. Takes off where last chapter left us, from Loki's perspective.

“She drives me off a cliff,” Loki huffed.  
“Who?” Baldr asked and leaned in closer. Loki shook his head. They would all hear soon enough.  
“What are you two whispering about?” Bragi barked from the other side of the table, jerking his bearded chin. He had a disapproving frown on his face again - not a surprise. It seemed to be the only way his mouth could turn when he saw Loki.

“The architect,” Loki said through his teeth and tried to make sense of what she had written. What was the problem with the handwriting of architects? It was hardly intelligible, and sadly his own notes from last night were no clearer.  
“Sigyn?” Bragi asked. Baldr and Loki both looked up at him.  
“Yes, and?” Loki asked. He should have figured out that Bragi kept in touch with her.  
“You know that Sigstad house is the office planning this, it’s your project. We talked this through yesterday,” Baldr said. He crossed his arms and leaned back in his seat. Loki tried to ignore the confirmed fact that he was being discussed whenever he was away.

“If it were my decision, someone like him wouldn’t be in contact with her at all,” Bragi said and waved a hand at him.  
“Will you take the bathhouse project back, then?” Loki snapped. Bragi raised his brows.  
“I’m afraid I have bigger matters to attend to. But at least I would give it to someone qualified within the Cultural collegium, like these fine men.” He nodded towards his lackeys. “Unlike the Council did, coddling you.”  
Loki had once thought the man a clever politician, even admired some of his poetry in the past. He had been impressed by how Bragi sang of the _home_ and the people.

“Did she curse the notes?” Baldr mumbled from Loki’s side, peering at his notes. He quickly snatched them back and looked them over.  
“If she did, I’d rather you didn’t read any aloud!” Loki said. It was there on the second leaf, a little hex-mark - not a very strong-willed or particularly skilled one, but the intention was clear. To make him forgetful and to make him stammer.  
“...why?”  
“I take it didn’t go so well, did it?” Baldr asked. Loki didn’t reply.

“Here we see it again,” Bragi said, mostly to his men but loudly enough to really mean it for Loki’s ears across the table. “The giant is already trying to undermine decades of hard work. Rotten born, rotten grew up.”  
Loki wanted to grab him by his garishly embroidered collar and choke.  
“That would be a fun interpretation of my actions if I weren’t called Odinson just a decade ago,” he said instead. Bragi sighed.  
“Don’t think that people liked you any better back then. They just don’t have to hide it anymore. Not only are you a superstitious bothersome witch, you’re also a giant’s bastard -”

Loki slammed a hand on the table and leaned over it. A pity that it was too wide for him to grab Bragi by the throat and slap him across the face.  
“You all voted on this!” he snapped. Baldr tried to shove an arm in front of him. “I didn’t give this task to myself. Are you challenging the whole vote?”  
“I can’t see why you’re here at all,” Bragi said and stared at him, all the weight of the sentence on that damning ‘here’. 

So it was like that. Loki tried to keep down his urge to laugh, but didn’t quite manage.  
“Why don’t you go and ask the King about that,” he said. “I can’t tell you what went through his mind ten hundred years ago. No more in the past month.”  
“Loki, peace,” Baldr said.

The great doors of the council room opened again.

“What’s going on, now?” Tyr asked.  
The old general walked back inside, looking like an angry bear. Forseti and Freyr followed close behind with their own ministry men. Tyr looked at Loki sternly from under his greying brows and Loki answered the glare.  
“A friendly discussion,” he forced out. If possible, Tyr’s look turned even more disapproving, but whatever he muttered behind his beard, Loki couldn’t hear. Forseti nodded to Tyr after a quiet exchange. 

“In that case I hope that you can push your friendly discussions aside for later. Secretary, Lord Bragi.”  
“We are gathered here for respectful discussion,” Forseti said slowly and sat down, voice as deep and clear as always. Everyone started to settle into their seats - the Lords around their great longship table, their men along the sidelines.  
“Of course, good Drots,” Loki said. He wasn’t great enough of a fool to go against the head of justice and his jurymen. Forseti still gave him a hard look.  
“I am serious. I don’t want to be sorting any additional appeals in court between my own councilmen,” he said, even if he spared an even uglier glare for Bragi.  
“Now, if you have no further issue we could finally hear what -” Tyr said, but was cut off.

“I don’t think our good secretary here is really suited for the work he was given,” Bragi said and stood up. How was such a spitting fountain of nonsense even possible?  
“We were just discussing, while you good lords were away, that the giant did not gain any favours for our cause from Sigyn, our city architect,” Bragi added. 

“Why of course, good lord, how could I forget that your favourite part of council work is running your own errands,” Loki said.  
“Shut your mouth.”  
“You too, Bragi”, Tyr cut in.  
“Really?” Loki ignored the general. “If I do, I can’t do your mundane messenger work any longer.”  
“Believe me, I know that. Because you need that slimy tongue to survive the smallest of greetings, the like normal people manage easily with a few smiles and nods,” Bragi spat.  
“Excuse me!” Forseti said. “Councilman, do sit down if it ever were possible for your legs. What did I just say about respect?”

It was silent for a few breaths. Freyr and Baldr were both eyeing each other quietly over the table, Loki stared at the table in front of him.  
“Of course, good Drots,” Bragi said and bowed his head, clearly mocking what Loki had said earlier. “Go on, _Secretary Loki_.”

Loki cleared his throat and stood up, marking his turn as the speaker. He looked at the papers and the thick canvas-bound book of the architectural history of the Healers’ institute.  
“I am sorry to inform the council, that indeed, as was pointed out, my meeting with the architect -” his breath caught in his throat and his voice died.  
For a moment all he could think was that it was the curse, he was cursed. He was infected with a foreign spell of some kind, had to be. His head was as empty as the abandoned winter nest of some wild beast.  
But he wasn’t cursed. It was just a petty school child’s hex, and he knew better. 

He _was_ a superstitious witch, really, and had always been.  
And everyone was staring at him, because of course they were, he was supposed to present clear results of the easy errands he had supposedly finished. He had to make up something clever and intelligent, preserve the spot he had managed to steal from the court -

“It’s all yours. I can’t do this,” Loki croaked out.  
“What do you mean you can’t?” Freyr asked, huffing like he was tasked with waiting for a tree to grow. “Of course you can. Tell us what the architect said and we’ll sort it out - preferably before nightfall.”  
“Why thank you, that fixes the situation,” Loki snapped back, trying not to crumple his notes in anger.  
“I’m sure it’s nothing we’ve heard before, this project was a mess long before you came in,” Baldr said, sitting there with his perfect square jaw and his perfect big Asgardian shoulders and perfect blue eyes that could rival Thor’s.  
“That’s a relief. Especially since she was so repulsed by my face that she screamed of filing a complaint in the first hour of my visit!”  
“She did?” Forseti asked. He looked more surprised than Loki ever remembered seeing.  
Damn.

Loki closed his mouth and wished to disappear - he could have - but gave the chairman a stiff nod.  
“That doesn’t sound like her at all. Sigyn has been an extremely professional addition to this project,” Forseti said.  
“Well, apparently people can’t be professional when they see me, can they?”  
"Loki, I’m sorry to break this to you,” Freyr sighed at length, glancing at his men and pausing to listen to a whisper. He nodded before looking at Loki again.  
“I think that what comes out of your mouth might be more repulsive to most people than how your face looks. And this I state as a sincere personal opinion.”

Loki froze. He tried to piece the words together in several ways, just to get the phrase to make more sense. It didn’t make any at first, but then the confused feeling of mulling over Freyr’s words turned into something else. Like turning over an apple and seeing the other half of it rotten brown and growing thick with white mold. What came out of…  
Freyr thought that he was even fouler than he looked, _even worse_ underneath the blue skin?

“Excuse me?” he forced out and a tight-clawed sense of unease crawled up the side of his skull. Several uncomfortable looks were exchanged over the table.  
"I think Lord Freyr must mean that… You’re not exactly made to work in a social situation,” Forseti said. Loki looked at him with a frown, but he shook his head calmly.  
“Are you trying to imply that I cannot follow common courtesies because of.. ?”  
“No, good Secretary. What I want to say is that working in a service position might not be your… forte. And I think now, looking back, we should have anticipated that and given you more time to adjust.”  
“You’re a rude, ungrateful bastard and always have been, is what he means,” Bragi snorted. It felt like a kick in the sternum.

“ _I am_ ungrateful?” Loki snapped. He had crawled back to Odin on his hands and knees and agreed to everything that the court was throwing in his way just to _get back home_. “That’s a lot coming from a grossly vain man like yourself. You who talk of tying me in the courtyard like a swine to be beaten for sport!”  
“Silence, please!”  
“You’d deserve it! You call me a slanderer, but answer this: Are you not a bastard? Shunned by two fathers and three brothers in a row,” Bragi hollered loudly like he was doing it for the whole world to hear. It struck like a knife to the chest.  
”You’re a dirty old whorehound, yapping but too afraid to bite! A false lord. You only gain credit for other people’s work.”  
“Ergi,” Bragi spat, and Loki sprang to his feet to shove a blade right through his belly so hard that it would come out from the other side of his girth -  
“Sit down!” Tyr yelled. 

Loki was leaning over the table with his hands already raised forward to attack, and a thin sheet of ice stuck up from the table in frosty needles. Bragi stared at the ice, teeth bared and red beard shaking with rage. He had pulled a knife out of some hidden sheath between his robes and looked like he was going to climb over the table.  
Loki blinked slowly and glanced towards Tyr. His heart was thrumming in his ears uncomfortably and the room felt too warm.  
“Sit down. Both of you,” Tyr ordered.  
Loki did as he was told, and pulled his hands away. Bragi only followed the order when Loki was already firmly seated. A heavy silence filled the room. 

“Bragi, tell me. What part of ‘councilmen are to leave all their weapons at the door’ is still unclear to you after nine centuries?” Tyr asked.  
“As soon as the giant is made to-”  
“I am not talking about Loki Laufeyson!” he shouted and cut Bragi off. Loki wasn’t dim enough to think that his turn wasn’t up next, but it was still a brief relief. Bragi’s outraged look was worth it all, even if Loki’s throat felt tight and blood rushed in his ears.  
“I am talking about you,” Tyr growled at Bragi. “Take that knife where it belongs or I will have the Einherjar come in and do that for you. By Norns, I will wrestle you myself.”  
Bragi looked very unhappy with the order and the threats that followed, but complied. Slowly.

“Loki -” Tyr started to say, and Loki panicked. He squeezed at the edge of the table and the words fell from his lips in a rush.  
“According to the Noatun treaty, binding a magician’s mouth is illegal unless use of witchcraft has resulted in treasonous acts, war crimes, murder or a notable loss of irredeemable property. Other warnings must be considered first,” he said.  
Freyr lifted his eyebrows in surprise and Forseti frowned. Loki cleared his throat.

“Do you have that memorised or did you just read up on it?” Forseti asked and fixed Loki with a firm look. Loki glanced at him warily. Was it a trick question?  
“I like to be prepared,” he replied and left it unanswered.  
Of course he had it memorised, had had it in his head for nearly five hundred years, now, and not without reason. Weighing his options now, he really hoped that he would have pressed for banning _sewing_ as a form of binding when he had still had the power to do so.

“Do you consider your magic a weapon?” asked Tyr.  
“As much as Councilman Bragi considers his fists. Are you going to chop them off as well?” Loki asked back.  
“Good Secretary, do shut up! It’ll be much easier for you to listen to what I say if you’re not speaking at the same time,” the general said, raising his voice again. Loki didn’t argue after that.  
It was de-escalation, all of it. Baldr wore a calm and understanding expression and Freyr was motioning for Bragi to stay back. They were trying to calm him down to escape a disaster. The table was still coated in frost in front of him.

“Have you, perhaps, talked to any of the city architects in this manner, Secretary Loki?” Forseti asked slowly, looking at him with a very cold and serious expression.  
Loki pulled his hands closer to himself but kept them carefully visible on the table. He mustered up a lukewarm smile and nodded apologetically, opening his mouth to reply.  
Forseti cut Loki off before he had a chance: “I have to ask, for if you have, Sigyn would have strong claims of your unsuitability to this position.”  
“No, I have not talked to anyone like that. Except for Lord Bragi, just now,” Loki said.

“Are you certain?” Tyr pressed on. Loki twisted his lips to hold back a full sneer.  
“I am.”  
“You do know that we’ve already received complaints just for your joining the council. I do not ask for the joy of it,” Tyr said, almost managing to pull of a tone of ‘unfortunately’.  
“I didn’t insult her,” Loki insisted, and was faced with several disbelieving stares. “She insulted me, and I told her not to,” he said. Bragi’s men were whispering with each other.

“Is the issue settled or do we have to assign someone else to the project?” Tyr asked. Loki’s shoulders were already tense enough to hurt.  
“It is. I do know how to speak to people.”  
“I know that. It’s a part of noble schooling,” Tyr agreed. “But I doubt that you know how to speak _with_ them. Granted, you may not be alone at fault for that, but at present it’s very unfortunate. Did Sigyn truly say that she would complain about your behaviour?”  
“No, she said that she…” Loki started, but had to stop when all his true denial revealed itself to be a lie after all. Because wasn’t that exactly what the architect had said? Word for word. 

And just like that she had rocked askew all the steps he had managed to climb. She would file in a complaint, she had said, if he acted like he had. Like it was a right he should have granted everyone, to evaluate his worth again and again with every meeting. 

For once Loki found himself missing the straight-forward speech of the Northern dens of Jötunheim. They hadn’t been a gentle people, but neither were they as vicious as Asgard was, with its layers of secrets and whispers and courtly smiles. He had never thought that he would miss the barren tundra after he got out of the cold valleys. But there he was.

“I didn’t try to insult her,” he said, almost ashamed of how worn his voice sounded. (And perhaps he was a little ashamed for everything else as well.)  
“I believe you,” Tyr said. “That you still managed to do so is the problem.”  
Loki took a few deep breaths through his nose, trying to get rid of the heavy dread settling itself around his eyes and throat. He looked at the notes of his meeting with the architect and at the angry little hex that Sigyn had scribbled along the margins.

“Is there such a thing as an official apology?” he asked slowly, looking up at Tyr from under his brow. _Like a dog._ He could almost hear Bragi’s voice though he kept silent for the first time in a while.  
Tyr nodded, closing his eyes with what looked like relief.  
“Yes. And that is a good suggestion,” he said. Loki dared to breathe again. “I think that it shows…” Tyr searched for his words. Loki waited.  
“Signs of a good nature for a position such as yours, secretary” Forseti filled in. “I agree with the suggestion wholeheartedly.”  
Relief felt like an avalanche. He wasn’t punished yet. He would survive another day.

“Then I will give one to her tomorrow,” Loki said. “I’ll do it when I take this… your response for her to comment on,” he added, stretching out an unfinished forgery above the table. He did it carefully, not wanting to seem like he was going to do anything rash again.  
“Thank you. Baldr can help you draft that after we’re finished,” Forseti said.  
“We can discuss this more in depth after you’ve met with the architect again,” Tyr added, and the Drots nodded to him.  
“I suggest we hold this as the first argument of our session and take a short moment to gather our thoughts before we continue. Frankly, secretary, you look like you’re going to fall face down on the table unless you continue breathing already,” Forseti said.  
“And Lord Bragi can get up for a little walk and help himself to a cup of water. He’s looking somewhat red,” Freyr scoffed.  
Bragi gave him an angry glare, but got up and said nothing more.

“You don’t do anything by halves, do you,” Baldr whispered under his breath. Loki tried not to shudder too visibly.  
“Shut up.”  
“I’m a higher-ranking lord than you, so you’d be wise to do the same. I’m the one who’s helping you solve this.”  
“I know.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had a crappy spring and an even shittier summer, the start of autumn has been a disaster, and I'm this >< close to a burnout. But maybe the winter will mean that things slow down. And I'm back now with a new really self-indulgent chapter (I just love writing arguments), plus I'm going to be back again soon with the fourth chapter of this installment! It's almost ready.


End file.
